My educational background is in literature and my day job is in information architecture. In both pursuits I spend much of my time thinking about how people think. Understanding how they learn, what their different perspectives are, and what unconscious biases they may hold made me a better writer and a better software engineer.

Now that I’m doing the hockey thing, I see those same biases in play– especially concerning younger players. Most of the furor about the Erat-Forsberg trade was rooted in a (now verified) belief that Forsberg had the potential to be a star.

Were those angry people right or did they get lucky? When do our aspirations for a player hinder our ability to discuss him accurately? And what kind of new information is most likely to make us revisit an opinion of a player?

Let’s do the numbers. These are current as noon on Sunday, February 8th. The sample is restricted to 5v5 hockey when the score is within one goal. There’s a glossary at bottom with an explanatory video.

Forwards

Player

GP

TOI

SA%

Goal%

PDO

ZS%

Ovechkin

53

677.8

55.4

52.8

99.3

58.3

Backstrom

53

672.5

54.9

50.0

98.3

56.9

Wilson

42

415.5

52.5

54.2

100.2

56.7

Burakovsky

40

359.1

54.0

54.8

100.6

65.6

Laich

38

362.3

53.8

45.8

97.8

48.6

Ward

53

561.2

53.4

40.0

96.6

48.4

Fehr

49

482.5

52.0

50.0

99.4

47.2

Kuznetsov

51

405.9

52.0

61.5

102.9

55.9

Johansson

53

491.2

51.8

50.0

99.8

58.4

Latta

34

232.9

51.2

60.0

101.8

43.9

Beagle

48

432.6

51.1

54.5

101.5

46.7

Brouwer

53

479.8

50.9

53.7

101.7

58.5

Chimera

50

436.9

48.1

50.0

100.6

46.5

Defense

Player

GP

TOI

SA%

Goal%

PDO

ZS%

Green

44

492.4

54.5

54.3

100.6

59.9

Niskanen

53

744.3

53.7

55.6

100.8

53.1

Schmidt

33

346.6

53.7

51.9

100.0

59.3

Alzner

53

694.2

53.0

52.5

100.2

50.6

Carlson

53

760.3

51.4

50.8

99.8

50.9

Orpik

53

786.0

51.2

49.2

99.0

52.2

Hillen

28

266.9

49.0

43.8

99.3

61.3

Observations

Puckon.net tells me the Caps control 52.6 percent of the 5v5 shot attempts when you adjust for score. That’s 9th highest in the league, though the Capitals haven’t been slightly under 50 percent in the last month.

Alright, let’s get down to it. Has Evgeny Kuznetsov been improving? Eyeball test says yes, including the one conducted by my own eyeballs, but now we should measure it. If we split the season in half, he’s dropped 51.1 to 50.6 in score-adjusted possession. (In that same stretch, Kuznetsov’s ice time per game jumped up by maybe two shifts per game.) Kuzya’s big jump has been in scoring (assists in particular), which has doubled from 1 point per 60 minutes to 2 points per 60 minutes. If what is driving that jump is shot volume and not shooting percentage, we can be more confident that Kuznetsov is becoming a stronger player. While Kuznetsov’s share of the offense has increased from 20 percent and 30 percent from his first 25 game to his second, the Capitals’ actual shot-attempt rate dropped from 53.1 to 51.5. Nope, bad news for Kuzya fans: his improvement is mostly in shooting percentages, up from 8.4 percent to a ridiculous 11.4. That’s a lot of data in prose, so here’s it all in a table.

Games

TOI

Goals/60

Assists/60

CF%

CF60

iCF/60

On-ice Sh%

PDO

First half

25

237.5

0.2

0.8

51.1

53.1

12.4

8.4

103.2

Second half

25

271.3

0.7

1.3

50.6

51.5

13.3

11.4

105.9

This doesn’t mean Kuznetsov sucks, and it doesn’t even really mean he’s not improving. A conservative way to interpret this analysis and square it with what we’ve seen would be something like this: The things Kuznetsov has gotten better at haven’t resulted in a better shot-attempt differential… yet. Maybe it’ll come soon. I hope so.

Mike Green still rules the roost inside our “within one goal” sample, but overall, Matt Niskanen now has a better shot-attempt differential. If you adjust for score, Nisky is plus-115.3 and Green is plus-64.9, a percentage difference of 0.5 percentage points. The perpetrator of Green’s decline is obvious: Jack Hillen, who drops Caps possession by 4.6 points when he’s on the ice– more than Orpik and Beagle. It’s time for a change.

But the Capitals already have the most expensive defense in the league. (Montreal is close; so is Philadelphia before you take Pronger off the payroll.) And yet here we are, with one pairing that works, one that doesn’t, and one that used to but doesn’t anymore. With Orlov and Schmidt in various states of repair and guys like Bowey in the pipeline, I’m not sure what MacLellan should do. It’s a tough situation, but it’s possible Hershey call-ups are preferable to Hillen, I’m sorry to say.

I kind of buried the lede there. What I meant to say is that the Karl Alzner / Matt Niskanen pairing has been doing very well lately.

I remain a top-line Fehr partisan, but Marcus Johansson has done very well as Alex Ovechkin‘s opposite wing. It’s been only about 48 minutes of 5v5 over the last three games, but the top line has had better than 60 percent possession in that time. The change hasn’t come from Alex Ovechkin’s individual shot volume, which has barely moved, but in Nick Backstrom’s, which jumped from 9.2 to 15 shot attempts per 60 minutes (small sample, yeah). Kind of makes sense: Having a strong puck-carrier on the other side of Backstrom could open the center up for more shots himself. It also might force the defense to cover the rush differently. Lots of potential up there, and it’s a heartwarming reminder at how Johansson has transformed his game this season.

Aside from my ongoing amusement at Alex Ovechkin going wild every other game, this is a good time to appreciate exactly what it is that Ovi does well– because he really is a one-of-a-kind talent. If Crosby is a playmaker and Stamkos is a sniper, than Ovechkin is a factory, a tommy gun, a speed-metal solo. Ovi has a lead of 44 shot attempts over the next guy (Pacioretty), which is exactly how he became one of the greatest scorers in history. Ovi’s shot rate is actually down this season by about 1.5 shots per 60 minutes, but he’s still the single best guy at what he does. For some reason people tend to value Ovechkin’s skillset less than Stamkos’s or Crosby’s. That doesn’t bother me. In time, they’ll come around. I’m certain of it.

I’ve been thinking about why I’ve been enjoying Brooks Laich‘s play this season, and I think part of it is one of those biases I mentioned above. As far as tilting the ice, Laich’s been solid (53.8 SA%, improving the Caps by 2.6 points within our sample), but he’s also what we call a high-event player. He allows more shot attempts in both directions. Conventional wisdom sometimes says that’s bad, but I personally prefer that kind of hockey. I love it; it’s more fun. That’s the kind of game I like to watch. Laich is like a glimpse of Boudreau Caps hockey in 2015.

Just 49.2 percent of the goals scored while Brooks Orpik is on the ice inside our sample belong to the Capitals. Overall during 5v5, Orpik’s plus-minus is neutral. I think he had a pretty good week actually, and he capped off that spurt of penalties about three games ago. I firmly believe there’s a way to make Orpik a more helpful player; I just don’t know what it is yet.

This has nothing to do with anything, but as long as Braden Holtby stops his first shot today, he’ll have seen 1400 shots and saved all but 100 of them. I like big whole numbers.

Glossary

5v5 Within 1. Our sample. The portions of games when each team has five skaters and the score is within one goal.

GP. Games played.

TOI. Time on ice. The amount of time that player played during 5v5 close.

SA%. Shot-attempt percentage, a measurement for puck possession. The share of shot attempts that the player’s team got while he was on the ice. Also known as Fenwick. Above 50 percent is good.

Goal%. Goal percentage. The share of goals that the player’s team got while he was on the ice. Above 50 percent is good.

PDO. A meaningless acronym. The sum of a player’s on-ice shooting percentage and his goalies’ on-ice save percentage. Above 100 means the player is getting fortunate results that may reflected in goal%.

ZS%. Offensive zone start percentage. Excluding neutral-zone starts, the share of shifts that the player starts in the offensive zone, nearer to the opponent’s net.